Sims, who died of cancer over the weekend at age 61, according to The New York Times, broke major race barriers when she appeared on the cover of Ladies' Home Journal in November 1968, a time when few black faces were seen anywhere in the media. She went on to model for Halston, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, and the covers of a New York Times fashion magazine and LIFE, above. Not that those jobs were easily won--when agency after agency rejected Sims because of her skin color, she started sending out her own information to photographers and cut a deal with the soon-to-be-very-important Wilhemina Cooper that essentially had her doing all of her own promotion but using Wilhemina's phone number and giving her a cut if jobs did appear.

"It's in' to use me, and maybe some people do it when they don't really like me. But even if they are prejudiced, they have to be tactful if they want a good picture," Sims once said. After her success in front of the camera, she quit the business to pursue a multimillion dollar beauty empire (she had plenty of experience doing her own hair and makeup, because stylists on set frequently didn't know how to work with her dark skin.

"Naomi was the first," Halston said to The New York Times in 1974. "She was the great ambassador for all black people. She broke down all the social barriers."